October 2011

Sierra Student Coalition just concluded their tremendously successful “100 Actions for Clean Energy” on campuses all over the United States. Highlights included:

On Thursday, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson met with SSC leaders from across the country (see photo) at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Students talked with Jackson about their local campaigns to retire coal-fired power plants on their campuses. Jackson agreed that the outdated U.S. fleet of coal plants must be cleaned up. She also explained her agency’s recent regulations of pollution from coal-fueled power plants and other dirty energy sources: "We’re not going to use the current economic crisis to roll back the health and safety people have come to rely on for a decade." The meeting with Jackson received great attention from Bloomberg News, Reuters, The Hill, McClatchy, IWP, EENews, and Politico.

On Wednesday, our SSC group at the University of Kentucky delivered to the Board of Trustees over 500 signatures calling for the university board and president to phase out the two on-campus coal plants and replace them with efficient and renewable sources of energy. SSC leader Patrick Johnson addressed the board’s finance committee, and about half of the committee members joined Beyond Coal activists in applauding Johnson’s speech. Lexington’s Herald Leader devoted a story to the students’ efforts here.

In other Wednesday news, Sierra Student Coalition members at the University of Virginia camped out in the amphitheater to protest coal burning on their campus. Joined by Sierra Club’s Virginia Chapter, they also screened the Dr. Seuss movie "The Lorax." This great event appeared in the campus newspaper.

Students at Michigan State University held a flash mob dance and delivered a petition to university president Lou Anna Simon, asking her to retire the on-campus coal plant.

In early August, U.S. District Court Judge James Redden ruled illegal the federal government's management plan for salmon and steelhead trout in the mighty Columbia and Snake rivers because it did not lay out a legal and scientifically accurate plan on how to recover the two fisheries or obey the Endangered Species Act. The ruling marks a huge win for wild salmon and the communities and ecosystems that depend on these magnificent fish.Sierra Club played a key role for several years in pushing for a stronger management plan for salmon. Among other things, we organized a fisherman’s rally in Portland while the Obama administration was in town, sending a strong message that salmon jobs matter. We also conducted a joint salmon alert with American Rivers and Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, asking that the government submit a stronger salmon recovery plan to Judge Redden.

The Snake River basin is home to the largest, wildest, and best-protected salmon habitat remaining in the Lower 48 states. Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope has called the Snake River Basin the "Noah's Ark" for salmon. If they can reach this habitat, wild salmon, now at barely 1% of historic levels, will thrive once again.

On Tuesday, weeks of dedicated Sierra Club organizing culminated with a public hearing on a permit for a 48-square-mile strip mine at the Kemper Mississippi Power IGCC coal plant.

The Club’s Beyond Coal activists greatly outnumbered plant proponents, and due to such a large and vocal turnout, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) was forced to extend the public hearing for three and a half hours!

Anti-Kemper activists spoke against the negative effects of the project on both ratepayers’ pocketbooks and the environment—including the destruction of the headwaters of the beloved Pascagoula River.

In a testament to our organizers’ skills, Sierra Club’s Gulf Coast Group teamed with the Gulf Restoration Network and chartered a bus filled with Mississippians from as far away as the coast (3.5 hours away) to bring them to the hearing—and our group even included the head of the Coast Tea Party!

Sierra Club’s executive director Michael Brune joined nearly 100 children, parents, health experts, and local residents at Pilsen Elementary Community Academy for an asthma screening, clean air rally, and press conference. Accompanied by the Club’s two-story inflatable asthma inhaler, a Mobile C.A.R.E. van tested more than 25 neighborhood children for asthma. Sadly, the majority of the kids’ results indicated the possibility of asthma, and they were referred to a physician. Mobile C.A.R.E.’s medical director Dr. Stephanie Whyte explained that the toxic chemicals emitted by coal plants are "a contributing factor" to high asthma rates in the neighborhood.

"How much longer are we going to let Midwest Generation bully our kids?" Brune asked. "How long are we going to let them make us sick when we have solutions available today?" Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign remains part of the Chicago Clean Power Coalition, a local effort to retire Midwest Generation’s Fisk and Crawford coal plants, two of the biggest air polluters in Chicago.

Chicago’s RedEye, which has a circulation of 250,000, featured our event and clean air efforts on its front webpage (see photo), and Progress Illinois gave the event some great coverage as well.

For the fourth year in a row, the Sierra Club Foundation (TSCF) has earned the highest possible rating—four stars—from Charity Navigator. Not only that, TSCF now ranks fifth among the 226 environmental groups focused on conservation and protection.

This year, the watchdog group revamped its rating system to also assess the accountability and transparency of organizations. As a result, TSCF’s ranking improved even more!

Founded in 2001, Charity Navigator, assesses the financial health of over 5,000 of America’s best charities. To read more about the new rating system on The Chronicle of Philanthropy website, click here.

Thanks in part to Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter and its allies, new buildings in Texas will be more energy-efficient, providing long-term savings and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The 2009 International Energy Conservation Code is now the official energy code for new commercial construction, and the 2009 International Residential Code governs construction of new single-family homes. The codes will ensure the design of energy efficient buildings, including the efficiency of elements such as mechanical, water heating, electrical, and lighting equipment. Energy efficiency is a key part of the equation to move the nation beyond coal. The Lone Star Chapter’s administrative advocacy, public education, and organizing helped bring construction in Texas into the twenty-first century.

The Lone Star Chapter successfully advocated for increased energy efficiency goals for large electrical utilities at the Texas Public Utility Commission and worked with Austin Energy to adopt a new Generation Plan with a 35 percent renewable portfolio standard by 2020. Chapter staff also recommended energy efficiency and programs to reduce energy demand in the transition away from dirty coal. As a member of the Energy Efficient Codes Coalition, the Lone Star Chapter also helped encourage the International Code Council to adopt 2012 building codes with even higher efficiency standards.

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